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Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Varche on 20 May 2016, 15:02:57

Title: Plane Crash
Post by: Varche on 20 May 2016, 15:02:57
Surprised no comment here.

Standard terrorist attack? Waiting for maximum confusion before claiming responsibility? Lone operator.?

I always wonder about the security of duty free type shops after security
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Kevin Wood on 20 May 2016, 18:07:39
For an aircraft to disappear with no mayday call it has to be an explosion onboard or a major mechanical failure causing the airframe to break up. We won't know which for some time. :(

Actually: In the light of MH370, we can perhaps add sabotage by flight crew to that. :(
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: 05omegav6 on 20 May 2016, 18:26:59
For an aircraft to disappear with no mayday call it has to be an explosion onboard or a major mechanical failure causing the airframe to break up. We won't know which for some time. :(

Actually: In the light of MH370, we can perhaps add sabotage by flight crew to that. :(
Egypt Air have form for that...

There was that 767 from New York to Cairo which crashed shortly after reaching cruising altitude. One of the flight deck put the nose down and held it there...

Sure, terrorists will get, and take, the blame....

Varche, your concerns regarding duty free shops etc are unfounded. Certainly here, everything being delivered airside goes through security, same as everything/one else... gets delivered to a building, unloaded, screened and is reloaded into vehicles airside. Shop staff do the restocking, but the deliveries are ALL carried out by/in the control of the airport authority.

I would be more concerned about the loaders overseas loading mobility scooters which are still powered up, especially those which still have thier lithium batteries attached. The really worrying part of that is that the crew don't always know that they even have them loaded :o

As I type, this could even be a cause in this case :-\
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: baggers on 20 May 2016, 23:05:34
The crash not to long ago, it was the pilot that intentionally crashed it. Was it into the Alps?
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: 05omegav6 on 20 May 2016, 23:46:52
The crash not to long ago, it was the pilot that intentionally crashed it. Was it into the Alps?
Not that one...

This one... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990 ;)

Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Drewomega on 21 May 2016, 09:13:45
This is interesting.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09&opt=0 (http://avherald.com/h?article=4987fb09&opt=0)
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: tigers_gonads on 22 May 2016, 13:50:58
Sound to me that the pilot was having a crafty fag in the toilets  ::)
I always said that smoking is bad for you and your passengers  :D :D
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Rods2 on 22 May 2016, 20:35:11
Incendiary device, lithium-ion battery fire or an electrical fault are all possibilities.
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: tigers_gonads on 22 May 2016, 20:53:22
Incendiary device, lithium-ion battery fire or an electrical fault are all possibilities.



If i'm been serious for a minute, I do wonder what these chemical detectors which sniff out explosives actually look for  :-\

For instance, would it be possible to construct a device which would fail the sniff test and still burn quickly / fiercely enough to cause terminal damage to a fly by wire control system  :-\
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Entwood on 22 May 2016, 20:58:09
As in the usual way in these matters, the more we learn the more questions arise .....

ACARS shows data transmissions continued for 3 minutes from the first "window overheat" before all power was lost (to ACARS)......

90 degree turn is a standard procedure to leave an airway if you wish to make an emergency descent - it gets you out of the way and avoids you flying into someone below you - tight 360 degree turn at high bank angle is also a standard procedure to lose height rapidly in an emergency descent.......

Smoke/fumes/fire would all instigate an emergency descent........

So, it appears possible that an emergency descent was commenced due to smoke/fire in the cockpit/toilet/avionics area ..... BIG question that doesn't compute .... why no radio calls ??? The avionics bay was powered - to ACARS - for 3 minutes, the aircraft was flyable and under control as it did those two manoeuvres so the pilot (s) were conscious and operating effectively, but no emergency radio call, no IFF/SSR emergency squawk, nothing ......

3 minutes is a LONG time in an emergency situation to NOT instigate a "mayday" call or to NOT press the 7700 squawk button on the IFF/SSR box ... even if only one pilot was working, training and instinct would suggest those calls would be made ....  but they were not .... most odd ....  :(

Rest in Peace all those lost ... we will learn what happened eventually.
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Kevin Wood on 22 May 2016, 21:53:15
Can only assume that "Aviate" (and possibly "fire-fight") was taking 100% of their capacity during those 3 minutes..  :(

Then again... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egyptair-flight-ms804-pilot-spoke-with-air-traffic-control-for-several-minutes-before-crash-a7041936.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egyptair-flight-ms804-pilot-spoke-with-air-traffic-control-for-several-minutes-before-crash-a7041936.html)
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: 05omegav6 on 22 May 2016, 21:55:41
Incendiary device, lithium-ion battery fire or an electrical fault are all possibilities.
My money is on a mobility scooter(or other electrical device) being improperly/inappropriately loaded... it would have been loaded last in either front or rear hold, almost 50/50 as to which... if in the front hold, it's next to the avionics bays and they're just under the toilet/flight deck bulkhead...

And if you want to know how quickly a hold fire can bring down a plane, read this...

https://aviation-safety.net/investigation/cvr/transcripts/cvr_vj592.php

Refers to the Valuejet flight 592... First sign of potential problem was 6"31 after starting the take off roll. Fire declaration follows 18 seconds later... last communication from the crew is less than a minute later. A further three minutes after this, the plane had crashed.

Consider that although an archaic pos, the DC9 is pretty rugged yet only took a minute and a half for fire to bring the plane down.

An A320, by comparison, is almost utterly dependent on electronics... which might make it more susceptible to sudden and catastrophic in flight fires.
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: 05omegav6 on 22 May 2016, 22:01:42
Incendiary device, lithium-ion battery fire or an electrical fault are all possibilities.



If i'm been serious for a minute, I do wonder what these chemical detectors which sniff out explosives actually look for  :-\

For instance, would it be possible to construct a device which would fail the sniff test and still burn quickly / fiercely enough to cause terminal damage to a fly by wire control system  :-\
In a word no... simply because prohibited hold items, such as lithium ion batteries, lighters etc ALL have to be loaded as hand luggage... and even then, there are somethings that are prohibited to put on a plane, no arguments. This allows individual items to be scanned one by one, and makes them far easier to be pulled for closer inspection. This is why ipads and laptops must be place in separate trays by themselves.

Don't forget too, that although you don't see it happen, hold luggage is also xrayed and if needs be searched manually ;) When people are asked to identify a bag at the gate, it isn't because the tag is missing... ::)
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Entwood on 22 May 2016, 22:10:01
Can only assume that "Aviate" (and possibly "fire-fight") was taking 100% of their capacity during those 3 minutes..  :(

Then again... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egyptair-flight-ms804-pilot-spoke-with-air-traffic-control-for-several-minutes-before-crash-a7041936.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egyptair-flight-ms804-pilot-spoke-with-air-traffic-control-for-several-minutes-before-crash-a7041936.html)

Accepted .. but the 90 degree turn and the 360 turn "shows" they were "aviating" .. and the rapid height loss agrees .. an emergency descent in progress, .... one pull of the transmit trigger with one finger and yell "mayday" .. they would have done it a thousand times in the simulator ... even if the cockpit was full of smoke, with a "sweep on" mask the message gets out ...

As for fire fighting .. extremely limited options ... tiny extinguishers and all the ignition sources in remote locations ..... very little chance of achieving any worthwhile result TBH .. :(

As to that report ... every source has said "not true" .. and you would have to be a conspiracy theorist of the first degree to explain the cover up needed to hide something like that !!
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: aaronjb on 23 May 2016, 15:35:53
This was all over the news while I was standing in Chicago O'Hare waiting to catch a flight back to Heathrow with my girlfriend, who is petrified of flying. So that went well.

Thoughts are with the souls lost, of course.
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: TheBoy on 23 May 2016, 17:47:05
Could the fire have taken out the voice side of the communications before or very shortly after the fire was discovered?
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: 05omegav6 on 23 May 2016, 18:34:21
Could the fire have taken out the voice side of the communications before or very shortly after the fire was discovered?
It has been suggested that there were other voice transmissions beyond those reported...

But to answer your question, yes.

ACARS data released could be the result of a section of loom being shorted... certainly, on the A320 family, the crew comms plug in just above the rear side window... given the list on the ACARS data, the looms to the comms and the windows may well follow a common route from the breaker panel/avionics bay... depends slightly on individual flight deck layout... one or two jumpseats, but the avionics bay is passively vented to the cockpit in flight and the breaker panel for the bulk of the avionics takes up the outer third of the cockpit bulkhead behind the right hand seat.

A hot and sudden fire would quickly overwhelm the suppression systems and give a very limited response time.

The Valuejet case highlights this... less than two minutes from initial detection of a hold fire to loss of power and control... especially when compared to the Swissair MD11 scenario... in that case there was around twenty minutes for the fire in the first class cabin ceiling to reach to cripple the aircraft :-\
Title: Re: Plane Crash
Post by: Kevin Wood on 23 May 2016, 21:23:55
I think the airbus has previous for the window heating system going into meltdown, too.